9/16/09

Many readers of Charlotte’s Library come here looking for advice, and I often feel that I should answer their questions for them. Some are sad: “How do you say sorry when a friend’s sister dies?” And some are silly. Knowing they probably won’t come back to read the answers, though, has kept me from spending any effort on this.

Until now.

Today I was asked:

“How to hook up with a random girl at school library.”

It seems easy enough—you go up to her when she is reading and say “What are you reading?” Or ask her for advice--"Do you know any good books about x y or z?" That sort of thing. Or sit next to her reading a funny book, and start laughing--maybe she'll ask what's so funny.

But my questioner has a more subtle problem—the need for randomness. How can you truly know if the girl you see in the corner is a random girl?

My suggestion here is to map the library on graph paper ala Dungeons and Dragons, number each square, and start rolling your twelve sided dice…until you get a square that has a girl in it. A girl who comes over to ask what you are doing would, de facto, not be random.